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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (73746)	8/31/2003 7:55:52 AM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 82486

Nostalgia now defines the Civil Rights Movement By Paul Greenberg Did you catch any of the 40th anniversary observance of the great March on Washington? I watched as much of it as I could stand, which was about five minutes. It was Marx who said history happened twice, the second time as farce. It may have been the only thing he got right. By the time I tuned in, a succession of minor spokesmen for minor causes were using up the last of the C-SPAN time to push their own self-absorbed little agendas. The usual inverse ideological ratio was at work: The more obscure the group, the longer the name. It occurred to me, not for the first time, that the country has been so busy celebrating the triumph of the civil rights movement 40 years ago that it's neglected to achieve anything similar since. Maybe because we've preferred to re-enact the past rather than address the present. How long, oh how long, can we keep recycling Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech without reducing it to just background noise? There comes a time when it's no longer History but historical kitsch. It's the same process that transforms great events into commemorative plates hung on somebody's kitchen wall. After a while, they just blend into the decor. All of which may explain why the civil rights movement stopped moving. Nostalgia replaced vision, and nostalgia can be addictive - and sedating. There was a lot of frustration expressed at this historical re-enactment, but not much else. Any meaning the event had was soon crowded out by the colorful costumes, rolling cliches and abundance of faux revolutionaries. Meanwhile, out in the rest of the country, real challenges abound. How to revive black institutions, especially basic ones like the family and the church? Public education needs to be reformed and reinvigorated through a whole series of new initiatives - charter schools, vouchers, a new emphasis on achievement and accountability, opportunity and self-discipline. Instead, all the forces devoted to the status forever quo still hold public education hostage, along with the kids trapped in failing schools. Instead of the liberating force it can be, public education is treated as a prize in a tug-of-war, just another source of political patronage. The result is that much of what is called education today has little real connection with kids' lives. Whether deep in the inner cities or out in the boonies, we are in danger of losing still another generation. Here and there, around the edges of the crowd before the Lincoln Memorial, the occasional young person said something sensible, direct and simple. Something truly revolutionary instead of just more of the usual ideological pap. To quote Jimmy Prude, 20, a senior at Howard University: "I just want to see people be able to help better themselves." That's as concise a definition of the American Dream as was heard all day. The American civil rights movement has done little but mark time since Martin Luther King's day. It may even have regressed, for now it seems to be seeking special privileges (affirmative action) instead of equal treatment. It falls for one ideological distraction after another instead of working on the basics: family, church, education, economic betterment, self-reliance . . . . For in the end the only effective emancipation is auto-emancipation. In some ways the civil rights struggle has deteriorated not just since Martin Luther King's time but Booker T. Washington's. That's what happens when showmanship supplants the hard work of organization and education, and ideology replaces ideas. The same old speeches will not be sufficient to meet long-neglected challenges, not to mention the new ones sure to come. New times require new ideas, and new leaders who aren't afraid of doing something new. Like encouraging individual initiative, competition in education, religious revival, community spirit . . . . Instead we get only the same old rhetoric. As one uninspiring speaker followed another, it occurred that the professional civil rights leader has become about as useful to the cause as the professional Southerner has been to the South. Both prefer remembering a golden past that may or may not have existed to engaging a complex present, and so creating a future that offers something more than nostalgia. * Paul Greenberg is editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 121 Capitol St., Little Rock, Ark., 72201; e-mail: paul_greenberg@adg.ardemgaz.com.

To: Lane3 who wrote (73746)	8/31/2003 10:39:59 AM
From: epicure	Respond to of 82486

That's very sad.

To: Lane3 who wrote (73746)	8/31/2003 12:15:55 PM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 82486

A tragic consequence of several factors. Poverty, the Islamic prohibition on women working outside the home, the Hussein regime's murder of millions of men who they considered a potential threat to the regime. But given the situation, how can the US respond to it? What happens if we try to forbid or control a traditional Muslim custom in Iraq? What happens if we try to make a sudden shift in the Muslim principles to let women work? Can we afford basically to provide welfare to millions of poor women, and if we do is it appreciated, or seen as an interference in their society and an attempt to buy off the population? Is there any short term answer to this tragedy?